


Full Circle

by Hiver_Noir



Category: The Hitcher (1986)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mysticism, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 09:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20636555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiver_Noir/pseuds/Hiver_Noir
Summary: Sometimes they come back. Other times it's you who comes back to them.





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by [GoldenHavoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenHavoc/works?fandom_id=2818614), whom I just can't thank enough.  
An [illustration ](https://horrible-device.tumblr.com/post/187600903396/show-me-something)for the story.

Show me something  
Thought I could make it end  
Thought I could wash the stains away  
Thought I could break the circle if I  
Slipped right into your skin.

Jim was trying to find a way back into his old life at first. One could say he was incredibly lucky in that matter: for reasons unbeknownst to him, Esteridge was willing to make a false statement and cover him up, while all the other witnesses able to refute his words, were no longer alive to rat him out. After the interrogations and testimonies, the first thing Jim did when he got home was to fall on his bed and lie in it for days on end, merely getting up to use the bathroom and gulp down some water from the grooved plastic canister his mother left by his bedside. He felt sick to the bone, as if a virus was busy devouring his body, melting synapses in his brain and covering his skin with a sticky layer of cold sweat; over and over, as Jim slipped into the deathlike embrace of sleep, he tried to wipe it all out , scratch all those memories from beneath his eyelids and the aching box of his skull. On the fourth day, when even sleep would refuse him, it finally dawned on him that forgetting was out of the question. He needed to live with the things he’d done and what had been done to him in turn.

A few weeks later, Jim gets a job at a diner not too far from home, contrary to his mother's concern and the careful advice of his psychiatrist. He just can't stay home anymore, where is mind continues to digest itself, playing a record of bloody scenes his life has shrunk to, a horror movie, inescapably ending with still photograph of Ryder's body stretched out on the road, starting all over again as soon as Jim thought he has seen and end to it.

Jim would have sacrificed anything to start over , to end this , but he can't. Moreover, he has nothing more to offer.

Crude is the irony of realizing that one day in the company of John (crazy son of a bitch) Ryder achieved the feat of turning him into a paranoiac. Such state of mind might have held undeniable usefulness somewhere in the muddle of a war zone or in the long stretch between Chicago and New Mexico, but deems completely unsuitable for a life meant to comply to an already pre-established norm. His psychiatrist believes he is not ready to drive yet, pointing out the danger of provoking traumatic memories – and yet it's only inside that metal and plastic shell of a car, locked with tightly closed windows, Jim can feel any semblance of safety at all, because his memories don't require any provocation. They are always there, a scar on his mind still raw, still flashing red like a tree’s first fruit ripe enough to pick. The outside reality seems too sharp, and he notices everything - a boy playing with a penknife, a window in the neighbor's house left dangerously ajar, a blue-eyed man in the crowd, looking at him too closely, too tenaciously. The small warning signs hidden between the newspaper lines that scream at him, the conspicuous whispering of radio voices in the kitchen, his own hometown blown out as a corpse on the highway and full of thorns like a poisonous fish — the whole world has lost its integrity, falling apart into thousands little pieces that Jim is unable to put together because he himself has become an unnecessary fragment, a broken piece of puzzle that doesn't fit in and connect to anything else. At home, he lies in bed, looking at the whitewash of the ceiling until he thinks he is going blind, or mad, or both, and even then he keeps staring, watching the colorful circles in front of his eyes and listening to the dull beat of his heart.

He is still alive.

How many people had to die because he refused to give John Ryder what he wanted?

_You wanna know what happens to an eyeball when it gets punctured?_

Ryder's voice reverberates in the back of his head, and it seems more real than anything he’s been surrounded by all these months.

The dead man talks to Jim, but at least Jim isn't crazy enough to answer.

He closes his eyes and finds himself back on the road. The highway comes out from under his eyelids as a long canvas, an endless ribbon to be strung tight beneath the wheels, and he can almost sense a rough cloud of gravel dust hitting his face, the smell of cigarettes and cheap coffee, served in a roadside cafe, and at that moment Jim feels something, a jolt of anticipation, a vague urge to be there, to escape the whispers behind him, the sympathetic glances, his own ceaseless anxiety that sticks to him like flakes of blood.

One day, when he works his shift at the diner, he notices a girl in the hall. It’s not the first time he sees her as she often comes here with her friends. She has light brown hair pulled by a cheap hairpin from a chain store and two small birthmarks on her cheek just above the right corner of her lips curved into a constant smile. Jim can't tell the color of her eyes, since he's been avoiding to look at people this close, but at the time she leaves him no choice. The girl watches him when he brings the order and leans in, invading his space. A gust of her perfume, sweet and sugary as a peach, corrupts his lungs.

\- Thank you. - She smiles, Jim mechanically lifts the corners of his mouth in response.- My name is Nancy. You're Jim, right?

The girl points her finger at Jim's T-shirt badge and the smile turns into a confident grin. She is young, beautiful and full of fire - a dangerous combination of qualities, Jim thinks, nodding in response to her question. He still avoids looking at her directly, putting napkins on the table, yet still she insists, trying to catch his eye with her own.

\- At what time do you finish here, Jim? The cafe closes at eight, yes? My friends and I are going to the movies today. - She turns to her three companions as if expecting confirmation. - Care to join us? We could give you a ride afterwards.

These words have him look at her at last; she has gray-green eyes, dark, thick eyelashes painted with navy blue mascara, but even her coquettish wink can't disguise the sympathy that ripples at the bottom of her pupils. She offered to give him a ride, because everyone in town knows the reason why he rides a bicycle to work. Once plain, little Jim Halsey, he’s become THE Jim Halsey in people’s eyes. An urban legend, a living warning, a man with a tragedy following in his steps, and Jim is disgusted by the thought alone - then by her, himself, by all of this life he’s been left to lead, crippled under the wheels of madness.

Jim shrinks and shakes his head; muttering something inaudible, adamant to ignore the fleeting grimace of disappointment washing upon her face. She tried her possibly best as they all did, but Jim knows first-hand how kindness towards a stranger pays off in this world, and does not want her to suffer such fate. Without another word, Jim spins on his heel and flees to the kitchen in a hurry, holding out in the broth of heat, horrid aftershave and frying fat till he can be sure the girl and her friends have long left the place.

This evening, Jim refuses to stare at the ceiling. Instead, he takes a stack of newspapers from the hallway to look through the job ads, and after shedding a few pages, he finds exactly what he needs. Description looks for someone to drive a car to California from Chicago as a starting point; almost the same destination, similar route. Jim feels the flutter in his chest, his heart knocking against the bone of its fleshen jail. He rereads the lines over and over till they turn blurry on the cheap paper - this is his chance to heal, to redo what has happened to him, to fix everything. No more hitchers beside him, no more blood, no more dead children and dying women in his wake, stirring the insatiable guilt that eats him alive. Only him and the monotonous landscape outside the window, a ribbon of road, unfolded before his eyes, like a bandage for his wounded thoughts, darkened by all the blood he’s seen.

Jim immediately heads down into the living room to call the phone number listed in the ad. As if fate had been waiting for him, his call is answered almost immediately.

***

The car he's supposed to drive is a ten-year-old white Impala with a grotesque pair of fins on both sides. As Jim walks toward the car, it reminds him of a spacious bridal gown, an unwritten sheet of paper or a pale coffin twice his size, but Jim chases those thoughts away for he considers this to be a good sign. He leans over the hood to caress the smooth metal under his fingers, as if trying to get acquainted with the car entrusted to him, and feels an aching need to merge with this pristine purity so that white would become his color as well. He hopes he’ll have plenty of time ahead to make it really happen.

He leaves town the same day, and this time he has prepared for the trip most thoroughly, filling his travel bag with things in advance and hiding a copy of the road map in the secret pocket of his jacket. Before he leaves home, he holds the army knife that once belonged to his father and weighs it in his hand, studying his own reflection on the sharpened blade. A thing like this could do wonders in case of any unforeseen trouble. Jim ponders over the thought for a while, then locks the knife back into the drawer where he found it. He isn’t the type to carry knives with him on the road. He isn’t like _him_.

Jim sets off early in the morning. The tension in his body buzzes like an electric current as he drives on the highway, being met with the familiar whistle of passing cars and the sound of wheels scratching their tracks inside the asphalt, both appearing to him as the most beautiful music. Jim presses the gas pedal and soon reaches the speed limit, the car under him flies like an arrow, sprung from the bowstring, leaving his hometown far behind.

The first day on the road passes without any peculiarities. He travels for several hours undisturbed, occasionally making quick stops to stretch his limbs or eat a sandwich, and then starts off again. All this time, he's got a strange airy feeling, steaming inside his chest. When he tries to define it, Jim is surprised to realize the closest word to describe it would be happiness. For the first time in a long while, Jim knows he is where he should be, doing what he needs to, and the moment this weak flare of meaning breaks into the dark tunnel of his future like a stab of blinding light, Jim rushes towards it head over heels.

In the evening, when green landscapes change to sunburned earth, he stops at a suburban cafe to take a break and replenish the stock of hot water in his thermos. Jim notes with surprise how much it resembles the place where he used to work just a day ago, the experience appearing infinitely distant and borderline unreal now. There are few visitors when he opens the door and walks in – none but men of rugged kind chewing ther sandwiches slowly, partaking in the dull duty of being fed. Jim recognizes them as truck drivers, their menacing vehicles towering in the parking lot like ancient mastodons. He orders a cup of coffee and asks the waiter to bring him a meal he picked from a menu without even looking. With his order arrived, Jim sits down at one of the tables by the square window and drinks – the beverage covers his tongue with bitterness, but it's better than the instant powder in his pockets. Jim looks out of the window, enjoying the ringing emptiness in his head. He wolfes the food down though, with a carelessness that betrays the lack of any kind of appetite –- the food has lost its taste to him long ago. When Jim's done and about to walk out, he finds his attention clinging to a shape further down the hall. His fingers start to tremble with such force that he drops his cup, barely registering the way it crushes back on the table with a loud clatter, spilling the remnants of liqiud blackness. Jim is immune to the looks, because his eyes are chained to a broad silhouette sitting under the smoky lights, similar to a swab of soot with an unkempt halo of ashen blond hair. The man is seated in the corner, his eyes fixed on his table, but Jim can't figure out exactly what's he's looking at or see enough of his face to shake off the terror paralyzing him at the moment. He feels like the room is caving in and his breathing accelerate against his will, as he realizes his hands and face to have gone numb.

Jim wipes his eyes, trying to calm himself, staring at the cup at his table, broken in two, the white shards stained with little puddles of black that suck him in as he struggles to breathe. It can't be him, it can't be true - he's dead, _Ryder's_ dead. He was the one to pull the trigger at him.

_You're so sure, kid_, whispers the fear in the back of his head.

\- Shut up! - Jim hisses through clenched teeth and holds his fists to his temples, trying to drown out that voice in his mind. It was to be expected, even his psychiatrist warned him about this. In fact, he had been lucky to have stayed out on the read without any incidents until now. Jim knows he has to enduren - it's like pulling out a rotten tooth to give the pain a chance to end truly.

When he manages to raise his head and look back to the corner, he finds the man to be gone. He must have walked past Jim, too immersed in his own panic attack to notice him leaving; he might have even mistaken Jim for another wide-eyed junkie chasing down the highway pumped with a dose of amphetamines. With this thought in mind, Jim manages to calm a little. Other visitors give him slanting glances as he walks away, his knees weak, too shaken up to feel embarrassed. That night he sleeps in the car, keeping the world at bay with all the locks he has to offer.

The second day of his journey is as uneventful as the first until the sun rolls over the dim line of a distant horizon. That's when Jim hits a coyote on the road.

Later, he still can’t figure out how this could have happened - one moment there is an empty road in front of him, and the next a gray lean shadow that throws itself under his wheels. Jim feels a sharp jolt that shakes the car, too strong for an animal of moderate size, and turns to the side of the road. He jams down the engine and practically falls through the door, burying his feet into the dry yellow sand. He inspects the car, but he’s doing it not because he is so worried about its safekeeping - in the end, the insurance will cover all the damage; however, Jim can't bring himself to look at the beast lying on the road. He didn't want something like this to happen, but it seems death is following him wherever he goes like a loyal admirer. The thought has guilt well up his throat, it's sticky tentacles wrapping themselves around his heavy heart and clenching it like a vice.

Finally, after making sure of the car’s still flawless condition, he reluctantly turns around, his gaze sweeping over the empty road. The coyote is lying in the middle of the highway and Jim can swear its eyes are pointed right at him, their gaze cutting through his soul like a honed knife. He approaches the beast cautiously, to find it clearly different from all the coyotes he has seen in his short life, mostly on TV - the animal’s fur bears a particular shade of silver, now marked by the dark red spatters of the setting sun; upon seeing sinewy, long legs and a gaunt yet resilient body, Jim concludes the creature to be very, very old. The most remarkable thing, however, is its light blue eyes, the color unnatural and transparent like a glint of shattered glass at the bottom of a pool. Jim comes even closer, and as he slightly leans over the body, the coyote raises its head abruptly, unlocking its jaw and forcing Jim to retreat in haste.

Besides being taken aback, Jim suddenly feels a splash of vague, viscous anxiety rolling beneath his ribs.

_It was just pretending to be dead, wasn't it._

\- Please, go away, - he whispers as if the coyote could understand him, but it doesn't even attempt to stand on its feet. It's just an animal, but Jim can't leave a living creature to die on the road like this. The right thing to do would be to stop its torment; a dreadful option that makes his stomach turn. Nevertheless, Jim looks for a suitable tool to fulfill the task. A large cobblestone fitted beneath his feet in sheer mocking will do just fine. Jim takes it in hand; close up, the beast’s gaze seems almost human, full of the sharp intelligence of a being able to find rupture among the bloodshed. Jim feels goosebumps rise in his skin because of the unexpectantly childish curiosity woven into that stare. But when he overpowers himself and takes another step, the coyote suddenly jumps on its feet, making Jim halt. It relaxes his jaw, presenting rows of paper-white teeth, as it stares right at him with unblinking eyes, Jim is struck by the appaling surmise that the coyote is laughing at him.

Jim blinks and the animal turns around, rushing from the road and into the desert, its movements as swift as can be after being hit by a car.

Jim looks again at the bumper where not a single drop of blood has gathered, everything that happened rapidly faded within his mind, appearing more like a dream rather than a part of his fucked up reality: perhaps there had been no coyote at all, and the only thing that occurred is him, Jim Halsey, losing his mind completely and irrevocably. Jim shakes his head as he’s trying to throw those thoughts out of his mind and gets back into the car. Nonsense! Nonsense.

But it's not that easy to forget — in his thoughts, Jim keeps coming back to the coyote incident. The sun already sets over the ragged horizon when he arrives at a small hotel by the road, greeting him with the glow of neon across the darkening sky so painfully bright it appears as more of a threat than the promise of rest, a poisonous insect in the depths of a rainforest. But this time Jim is not going to make the same mistakes buried in his past, he will not be as arrogant as he was to neglect the need for sleep.

He quickly gets through the registry – the receptionist is an elderly lady, who pays way more attention to her knitting than to him, and gets the keys. His room smells like mothballs and mold, the tiles in a tiny bathroom are discolored and broken, but it is still more than enough for a tired traveler. After a day spent under the ubiquitous accompaniment of the hard-working engine and the whistle of wind, breathing into his face, the silence in the room seems unbearable. He turns on the dust-cloaked TV and goes to take a shower.

Beforehand, Jim pulls the front door several times to make sure it is securely closed.

Even as he turns on the water and puts his hands under the warm spray, he still can hear the TV’s murmur from the room, some old man with a voice like unoiled door speaks to him through the phosphoric screen.

\- The sacrifice was not only an expression of gratitude to God, but also a means of atonement for committed sin... In the patriarchs’ history there are often mentioned altars built in the name of God, and Moses demanding the release of the Israelites from the Pharaoh, motivated this by the need to offer sacrifices at Mount Sinai, so that God would not strike them with wrath or pestilence...

Jim listens with rapt attention, rubbing shampoo into his hair. The peach smell hits his nostrils unexpectantly and he snorts, quickly washing off the foam.

When Jim leaves the bathroom, he wipes his hair dry and lies on the bed, dressed in a clean change of clothes. He doesn’t allow himself to fall asleep just yet - he wants to look at the map again to choose the best route, pinpoint the places he’s going to stop at and get some rest, but his lids turn heavy against his will. The TV’s mumble feels soothing as a lullaby, and soon Jim falls asleep.

His wake-up call is instant, like he hasn't slept at all. He sits on the bed, rubbing his eyes, and looks at his wristwatch — it's only two o'clock in the morning, which means he slept for three hours. At first, Jim feels like a touch to his face pulled him from slumber, but of course it's just an air draft - the window is wide open and the night air flows freely into the room. And yet, Jim can’t help the strange feeling that engulfs him. Something isn’t right. He watches the room with caution, holding his breath, and finally he can hear it.

He hears the silence.

The TV is off.

He doesn't remember having done that.

Jim jumps to his feet, rushes to the door and pulls the handle, but it's still closed. He looks behind him, his heart beating faster as the walls seem to move, trapping him. Holding onto the scraps of his sanity, Jim presses with his back to the door, the cold steel weight of the knob drilling in-between his ribs, but he hardly cares. After taking a few torn breaths to collect himself, he walks up to the window with quick steps and looks out – the frame is big enough for an adult man to climb in, but Jim doesn't remember if it was open when he arrived. He bites his lips ushering his troubled mind to think straight, but anxiety keeps raging, tearing any calm to shreds. Realizing he won't fall asleep anymore, Jim packs up and leaves the hotel, placing the keys on the empty reception desk, and, truth be told, he feels relief only the moment he climbs back into his car. A change of plan is in order; drive all night to leave this place behind and rest later in the day – or so he tells himself.

Jim starts the car, and turns it around; but when he manages a circle in the parking lot, heading towards the highway, what he sees has his hair stand on edge.

They seem to be a couple in their early twenties, boy and girl. Their car pauses in front of the vending machine, the guy behind the wheel sticks out of the window to buy something while the girl smokes, shaking off the ashes over the edge of the window glass. But that's not what gets Jim's attention.

The silhouette in the back of the car, hidden in its depths by a veil of purple-blue shadows, does.

Jim turns on the high beam and accelerates, abruptly turning around to stop a few tens of meters from the couple, his headlights cutting through their car, illuminating it from within. He barely notices the girl wrinkle her nose and cover her eyes while the guy seems to be shouting at him, but Jim doesn't pay attention. His eyes are fixed on the man in the back seat, the one that is still motionless, his ash blond head turned away and bowed to one side, but Jim is still able to recognize him because how could he not?

For what he sees from this angle is more than enough — the sharp outline of his cheek bones, the curls of light hair adorning the nape of his neck; every little detail thats so deeply engraved on the inside of Jim's skull, scorched into his memory with red-hot iron no amount of meds or time could erase it.

For one moment, Jim is at loss. Everything around him slows and stills, he might be shouting as well, desperately pressing the signal. All his previous thoughts are being washed away by an avalanche of something so ancient and primordial that Jim himsel is unable to describe what exactly he feels at the time — his brain is a mixture of horror, rage and some sort of dark triumph, the origins of which he himself is unable to explain.

The guy gets back in the car and drives off, giving him the finger out of the window. Jim seems to have scared them, but he's too far gone so he doesn't care. He wants to save them; this is what he tells himself as he steps on the gas, rushing after them like a starved predator chasing its prey. The car in front of him continues to speed up, the driver clearly trying to break away, but Jim does not give up. He continues to drive the pedal into the floor, soon reaching beyond the speed limit till he finally manages to catch up in truth. He turns his head away from the road and stares into the depths of the other car with relentless rage when the man in the back seat leisurely moves to face him, holding Jim’s stare with his own.

Jim's heart is missing a beat. No, he thinks it's stopped for good, and all he sees now is his dying brain's final delirium.

Jim opens his mouth to scream, warn them when the shadow in the backseat rushes forward wrapping the driver’s head with its black wings. The car takes off to the right, almost colliding with Jim's. He turns the wheel, avoiding collision, but losing control for a moment. For some reason, he is not afraid when he is thrown from side to side, like a puppet, hanging on the only remaining string of the seat-belt, as he rotates the wheel to handle the car.

Before all of this happens, however, Jim notices the fear in girl's face, the primal horror filling up her eyes that leaves no place for anything human.

Just like it had in Nash's eyes that day.

The car in front of him wiggles along the trail as if the driver is drunk or dead, but it doesn’t take long till its movement becomes straight and focused again, and that scares Jim more than any signs of struggle.

Jim resumes the chase, but is unable to make it in time.

The car accelerates like a bullet in the barrel of a suicide gun, and draws a smooth arc on the road, rushing straight to the concrete base of the power line near the highway. Until the last moment, there is no sign of oscillation in its trajectory.

Everything happens too fast. Jim hears a thunderous rumble and then there is silence merely disturbed by the noise of his car's engine. He tries to stop, and the shrill squeal of brakes mingles with a woman's scream. His car jerks to the left as he flies past the broken car as the steering wheel becomes heavier in his hands, and Jim realizes one of his tires is punctured. The car starts to lean towards the depressurized wheel, and Jim hits the brakes, provoking a skid, that takes him on the oncoming lane, where he finally manages to stop the car. He rushes out even before it stills completely and runs up to the site of the crash to look inside the couple’s car, pressing his hands against the fractured glass.

Jim has seen enough death to know that the people in the front seats are done for. He hears a disgusting, measured noise, the gentle tap of blood dripping on the ground. Jim just keeps staring at them, faintly registering the sound of the door being opened, mingling with the _tap tap tap_ in his ears. Sand and gravel gnash under the man's leather boots, as he gets out of the car. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim watches him raise a hand to his hair to shake off the residue from the crash, glass shards falling down with a diamond ripple. The air surrounding Jim's body becomes thick and hot, just like blood spilled on the rocks and Jim can almost taste its metal tang on his tongue. With a slowness only found in nightmares, Jim turns around.

And he sees.

Him.

The eyes on his tanned face are still as impossibly blue as the sky above the sunburned desert, vacant and chilly like the moon. His capricious lips are pressed in a firm line of indifference, and he wears the same raincoat, black fabric feigning the immense darkness above. The corners of his mouth draw apart like theatrical screens, opening the teeth as white as a bone, licked clean by the sands of time.

_Look what you've done, Jim._

Jim is suffocating. The air, soaked with the stench of blood, boils within his lungs and smothers his throat. His own heartbeat seems deafening, he is struggling to breathe, but it's also easier that way, he'd rather focus on his painfully constricted throat than on the nightmare once again enthroned upon the vast highway in front of him.

\- Don't be upset. They would have died anyway.

Jim trembles as if he has been electrocuted, shaking off the paralysis. Rage swarms at the core of his heart, covering the world in a red blaze, and for one moment, Jim feels real, alive. Ryder's figure rolls all over him like a black echo of violence and Jim swings his fist, hitting him in the face. He barely feels the impact of the attack, the contact of flesh on flesh, and until the last moment he hopes Ryder will dissolve into nothing, fall apart in the stirring whisper of interference from the faulty radio receiver Jim's brain has turned into.

Instead, Ryder wipes the blood from his split lip and looks at his tainted fingers with a mixture of surprise and amusement. He smiles again, looking down at Jim who can't take his eyes off the teeth showing, their ivory white painted by a smear of scarlet - just like the sheet сovering what was left of Nash's body, like paper forms scattered across the police stations and filled with red splashes instead of ink, like Jim's whole life, stained by murderous bloody hands, and he chokes, bending in half, convulsingly trying to swallow the tight lump in his throat, unable to breathe.

Ryder pushes Jim with enough force to make him clash against the broken car, and reality returns to him in its entire gloomy splendor. He feels everything - the torn edges of the ruptured metal, the stench of gasoline in the air, the numbness in the hand he hit Ryder with, even the tears, sliding down his face in hot salty patterns and cooling under the savage gusts of night wind. Ryder studies Jim with the interest of a seasoned entomologist who has stumbled upon an unusual bug and now watches it crawl before placing it on a needle.

Keeping his eyes on, Ryder raises his hand to his mouth to lick the blood off his fingers, then presses them against Jim's forehead as if to bestow a blessing. The latter shudders and goes limp, leaning against the broken car, all his rage burned out and leaking through to soak into the ground like blood. He feels lightheaded.

\- Let's go. - Ryder picks him up under the elbow and drags him along. Jim stumbles and almost falls, hanging on the other man's grip while faintly attempting to pull away.

\- Don't touch me, - Jim mutters, his own tongue a heavy boulder in his mouth.

\- Do you want to wait until the police arrive? - Ryder's grin is nothing but wolfish. - Try it. You know how it ends.

Jim twitches. Anger limps somewhere inside his guts, then subsides like a wounded animal. He gathers his strength, albeit barely moving his feet, and hisses:

\- You won't kill me. You fucking bastard, I know you won't.

Jim feels the need to speak his mind, to oppose the confident tyranny of the man whose unyielding hand pulls him forward. He won't play this crazy game anymore, won't do what he says. Ryder entered his life for one day and razed it to the ground, what else is there left to lose?

\- There's no need to kill in order to hurt someone. - Ryder's tone, as mundane as ever. He walks too fast, Jim barely manages to keep up the pace. - You don't know what one can do to a man before his heart stops. Yet.

\- Is that what you want to do now? Hurt me? - Once the implication of the words sinks in, Jim feels a sharp pinch of fear and rejoices, welcoming it as an old friend. It feels better than nothing; in fact, he finally remembers what it's like to be alive. He rushes to the side, wriggling out the tight grip on his elbow, and Ryder turns to look at him, sparks of mirth dancing in his blue eyes like tiny shards of ice circling on the surface of a freezing lake in winter. - Go ahead, freak. You've already done everything you could.

\- Kid. - With his lips curved, Ryder leans forward, hovering over Jim like a rock. A glacier, Jim corrects himself. A huge, dead block of ice, its sole purpose of existence to sink ships and leave widows in its wake. A big hand, heavy as stone, lies on Jim's shoulder and squeezes ever so slightly. Ryder leans a little closer and speaks, his tone intimate, almost tender. - You have no idea what I can do to you.

Maybe it's this predatory closeness that awakens the remnants of his survival instinct, or the unnatural contrast between words and the tone they were spoken in struck some painful nerve inside him, but Jim shuts up. Ryder smiles again, turning away from him and continues to move forward with the inexorability of a loaded truck on the highway. Jim follows him without a word; suddenly he remembers the police never told him anything about what happened to Ryder's body. They either saw no need to inform him or forgot about it, and Jim never asked since he was glad to forget as well, cross it all out of his memory.

He rushes forward and pulls at Ryder's sleeve, forcing him to stop. He looks up to his face like he's trying to drill a hole in it and see his coal black soul for what it is. Ryder still has blood in the corner of his mouth where Jim landed his blow. He recognizes Jim’s gaze stutter at that and licks the speck away with his tongue.

\- How did you survive?

Ryder tilts his head and stares at him with the same calm and condescending expression, and for the first time Jim notices just how strange his pupils are, filled with a translucent azure that seems to glow in the dark, like electric lights or the eyes of a nocturnal beast.

\- How did you survive? I did what you asked me to. I killed you. Why did you come back? - Jim's voice starts to shake. He’s still holding onto the sleeve of Ryder's coat. Irritated, he lets his fingers slip away, but the man captures his wrist and puts his hand on his chest.

Jim wants to say something, wants to yell or maybe hit him again, but suddenly he understands. There is absolute silence under his hand. Ryder's chest rises under his palm, slow and ever so even, but deep inside, in the damp vaults between bones and flesh, there is nothing to be heard. Jim retracts his hand as if the touch burns his fingers, and Ryder laughs quietly. It's a surprisingly soft rustling sound, just like the blows of wind playing between the branches of a dead shrub.

\- Do you want to take my life so badly, son? Don't you know it's a sin?

\- I'm not your son, - it's the only thing Jim manages to force out in return. What he felt doesn't mean anything. He could have made a mistake, he is tired, and is it even possible to feel someone else's heartbeat through a few layers of clothing?

The rest of the way they walk in silence. After what could have well been a whole year or one hour, they reach another branch of the highway. Rider stands at the side of the road, a carnivore waiting for new prey to sink his teeth in, his grim silhouette rising above the asphalt like a monument of insanity, a menacing warning, but at the same time his figure seems so small against the gray desert and inky sky spread around them, just a tiny spot across a road map. Meanwhile Jim sits on the ground, leaning his back against a dusty cold boulder and trying his best to keep his head upright. His fear and awe have already left, leaving him with none but a leaden load of shell-shock fatigue. His head falls on his chest now and then, and the horizon before his eyes sways along with it, he feels like a sailor, caught in the eye of the storm, getting a moment of quite before his ship sinks to the bottom. One image circles in his head like an obsessive vision — a map, soundlessly unfolding before him like a huge living body, fed by the complex entanglement of vessels, and John Ryder, lost somewhere within - a small deadly stain in this chaotic, but living system. He is like a virus, Jim realizes, but that thought soon goes out when he closes his eyes, and is unable to open them again.

  


***

Jim wakes up in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. For a while he just looks at the ceiling and the corner of the window, staring senselessly at the scattered stars lightning up the sky, and it seems to him it is the car that stands still, while the whole world revolves around it. The air is stuffed with the scent of lemon air freshener, and Jim doesn't remember how he got here, but doesn't really care either. More importantly, he's covered with a thin blanket, and Jim stares at it suspiciously, frowning his eyebrows. Who could have done that? Who in this world cared enough to have made an effort for his sake? Was it Jim himself, half asleep and shocked out of his mind and memory? The unfortunate car owner? John motherfucking Ryder? He looks at the man behind the wheel, and their eyes meet in the rearview mirror. Blue. And Jim knows. Ryder reaches out to click the radio switch, and the dynamic squeaked and snorted before the white noise turned into a simple melody. A distant voice sings to Jim with a gentle mockery:

_He hit me_

_And it felt like a kiss._

\- Where are we going? - Jim can't recognize his own voice. He doesn't ask Ryder about the fate of the car owner since the answer’s obvious.

\- To Disneyland.

Ryder turns the steering wheel and for a moment Jim sees his left hand, an engagement ring flashing on his finger.

\- What's that ring for? You’re not married. No woman would marry such a lunatic. - Jim spits out. He can't explain it himself, but somehow he knows it. He knows Ryder isn't married, knows he has no family, no ID, no bank account, and no dog. And maybe he never had. Perhaps he just appeared somewhere in the desert, formed out of the thin air, like water drops that condense on the rocks in the morning after a particularly cold night, as Hell spewed him out of it's fiery womb.

Ryder responds with a soft chuckle. He seemed keen on the road, and Jim wonders if he would be able to quietly remove the belt from his jeans, throw it around his throat from behind and strangle him. Ryder looks at him again in the rearview mirror and smiles as if he could read his thoughts. Jim can't see his mouth, just his eyes, blossoming in the dark with the rays of radiant wrinkles – two pale, frigid stars, but that is enough. _He knows, Jim, and you know he knows, so why won't you stop pretending?_

A quarter of an hour later, Ryder finally talks again.

\- The ring seems trustworthy. People think you're one of them, lose their vigilance. But it's just a trinket.

\- People think you're one of them? So you don't think you're human enough to fool them otherwise?

Ryder shrugs his shoulders carelessly, as if asking him in turn - _do you think I'm human, Jimmy_? Jim falls silent as they drive, occasionally bypassing the headlights of oncoming cars, cutting through the darkness like white-hot balls of purifying fire. Jim shivers from the cold and wraps himself in his blanket, thinking that maybe if he falls asleep again, he will wake up in bed, and there would be another dull day ahead to spend in the all too familiar purgatory of the catering service, caught between life, death and retribution. Or maybe all that happened to him then and is happening now is but a form of punishment for the all his sins, both committed and not committed in this life yet. A preventive redemption, his own private hell with blond hair and a pair of eyes that look like someone tore a couple of holes in the fabric of being. Jim would have laughed if he hadn’t known Ryder to be watching him. He doesn't need to look in the mirror to know it. His stare pierces skin and much deeper — that sensation is a lump at his guts, a chill in his bones.

But this time, Jim won't back down.

\- Why did you pick me? Why me? Why are you following me?

To his surprise, Ryder answers right away.

\- You were the one who picked me up. Then again, you made all the way back here, to the desert. Left that beautiful new life of yours behind. Maybe you're the one following me.

Jim looks up to the mirror and sees Ryder watching him with a painfully familiar, condescending mockery, and at the same time, the corners of his eyes are painted with inexplicable... pity. Like that time in a diner when he stuck two heavy coins to Jim's eyelids.

\- It's time to grow up, kid.

Before Jim can conjure an answer, Ryder turns around again, and the car shudders and moans as it is pulled off the smooth highway to the side of the road.

\- We are almost there. Wait for me.

Without mentioning another word, he gets out of the car, slamming the door shut. Jim is listening carefully, struggling to find out in which direction his footsteps are going, but he can't hear anything. It is so quite, like the oily darkness outside has swallowed Ryder completely and dissolved him without a trace.

Good riddance, jerk, Jim thinks listlessly. To tell the truth, it's been too long since he’s had enough strength to waste it on hate. Now that Ryder's gone, he clearly feels a discomfort in his stomach, as Jim belatedly remembers that his insides can be twisted into a tight knot not only when he is being accompanied by a serial killer, but also due something as trivial as hunger. While Jim rummages through the back seat and the glove box, he is surprised to notice the tremble in his hands has almost subdued. He finds an unopened bag of potato chips and chugs down its entire contents without tasting any flavor

After a little rest, Jim opens the door and gets out of the car — Ryder took the ignition keys, of course. Cold night air licks greedily at his face while he is walking down the road without knowing where he is or where he is supposed to go, whether he wants to get away or to face his nightmare. For what reason though? To end it? To destroy Ryder once and for all? He would have to dismember his body, burn it and bury the remains at the crossroads, just like they do with vampires in the movies, but Jim is unsure if he's strong enough to pull it off. Maybe he should just let Ryder kill him for good instead. The man told him to wait in the car, but it doesn't matter - he'd find him, Jim knows he would. They will find each other whereever they are, but he doesn't want to wait, give himself up like that, at least not now; not without a fight.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there is a screeching telling him he has to find a phone, call the police, tell them the serial killer believed to be dead is back on the road — if he’s been missing at all. But he knows he wouldn't stand a revision, the police won't hold Ryder back, and Jim failed to stop him yet again.

He must have been walking for several hundreds of miles when a gray SUV drives past him, raising a cloud of bitter dust, and brakes, drawing a full circle on the road. Jim does not have to look closely to see who is behind the wheel. When he approaches the car, Ryder opens his passenger door and nods to the seat next to him.

\- Get in.

Jim silently climbs into the car and, after a short hesitation, fastens his seatbelt - the dead travel fast, don't they? Now it's his turn to be John Ryder's passenger, not like it wasn't supposed to happen sooner or later. With that thought, Jim leans back and prepares to relax as they get on their way again.

It’s the first time he finds solace in Ryder's closeness — nothing bad can happen while he's driving, his attention glued to the road. The monotonous noise of the engine lulls him to sleep and Jim slides on the edge of the that abyss, not risking to fall a little deeper and come too close to the edge where sleep flows into death, as he lacks a guide to help him overcome that line so that he could survive his own dead self and inherit the desert. Jim doesn't want to fall asleep; he remembers what had happened every time he allowed himself to, so he stays over the surface, trying hard not to sink into the thick volcanic glass of oblivion.

A click of the opening door brings him to his senses. Ryder stands in front of him with a canister in his hands, and Jim knows it's full of gasoline.

\- Time to wake up.

Jim measures him from head to toe, holding his eyes on the canister, and gets out. They are already far off the road - no lights to be guided by, only stones and sand, sunburned earth, baked to the cracks by the blind desert sun. He can't feel a single movement in the air, as if they are walking on Mars, and this heaviness in his head is not the weight of his exhausted mind, but only gravity. Jim sees a rocky slope ahead, Ryder is heading there, but Jim freezes immediately and yells at his back.

\- What do you want from me? I won't make another step until you tell me!

\- Then stay here. Maybe in a couple of days I'll be back to take a look at your dried up, dehydrated corpse.

Jim hesitates, biting his lip – Ryder could have already killed him if he wanted to, but apparently he doesn’t. After a few moments of contemplation Jim makes a decision and starts moving his feet. Their path follows up to the mountain, and it's hard to walk on uneven rocks, but Ryder doesn't seem to be fazed by any of it. From behind, his silhouette looks like a big black bird with its wings folded behind it, and Jim gets a feeling he's about to spread them out and take off.

\- God wanted to know if Abraham would obey Him. - Ryder’s voice is a calm, but deafening rumble in the still air, drowning among the rocks, - and God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac at the top of the mountain.

Jim is silent, too focused on walking. The stones under his feet are black, but he thinks they will turn red under the light of the sun.

\- This story has been around for many years. But people offered sacrifices in the desert long before that.

He stops talking, and Jim's lips finally part to let out a question that has been chasing him all this time, the one he wanted to ask since that day.

\- Is this why you did it to her?

Ryder shakes his head without looking back, as if he is amazed at yet another act of Jim‘s stupidity.

\- You never understood anything.

Jim almost steps on something dark and strangely yielding under his feet, but at the last moment he manages to bounce aside. A pile of stones is scattered in front of him, and there is a man spread out over it, like a disposed pile of clothing. Jim looks at him more closely, and notices he is still breathing. Rather than feeling relieved, Jim thinks he’d better be off dead by now. Whatever Ryder’s got in store for him shows less mercy than death. Like what he did to Nash.

Something cold touches his fingers. Jim flinches as Ryder carefully puts a massive cobblestone in his hands and Jim cannot refuse him, unable to push him away or throw the stone to the ground.

He sees two more shades at a distance - a woman and a child, seeming to be a girl; both are tied up, but still alive. Jim winces at the uneven rise and fall of their chests, his limbs possessed by a nauseating weakness.

Ryder pushes him forward, and Jim almost falls on his knees from the impact. He seems unable to move a finger, gazing at these people, tied up and thrown to the ground. They remind him of sheep destined to slaughter.

A human sacrifice. That's what he wants from him, what he always wanted.

\- Take him over that line.

Ryder's hand slips under his clothes, letting the cold air in, and the touch of a pointed blade traces the place under his left rib.

The man in front of him is outstretched on the rocks - a fish under a butcher’s knife, and Jim's mind grabs desperately at all the little details merging into a blurry image: a plain shirt, dark hair, a pair of hands tied together in an impossible angle. Jim can't see his face, and something inside him whispers: it is better this way, it’ll be easier for you to do it.

\- No, - He shakes his head. - I won't.

\- Yes, - Ryder insists. - The final test. Then you'll be free. You want to be free, don't you?

Ryder's hot breath ghosts over Jim's ear, breaking the frail shell of his concentration, and he shakes his head in protest, not quite aware what his denial is about. Ryder's body behind him radiates fever, as if the flesh under his black raincoat is woven from blazing fire. Perhaps it is.

\- Come on. Do it. - A note of impatience in his voice. - It's just as easy as disposing of a wounded animal on the road.

The knife presses harder against Jim's skin, biting the flesh deep enough that it opens way to a thin trail of blood, and Jim makes a decision. He leans forward slightly and stands on his toes, lifting the stone with both hands as he squeezes his eyes shut, stilling himself in a position of precarious balance. Finally, his fingers unclench and he clearly feels the cold weight slipping out of his hands with a rough drag over his skin, as it falls down in a few inches from the man's head, the dry sound from the impact nearly inaudible. Jim pushes himself off the ground, falling back towards the blade of John Ryder's knife, right into the burning heat of his body. A leap of faith, he muses during this last moments. He is sure it will happen fast. Ryder will cut through him as easily as piercing a moth with a needle, and leave him to bleed, perhaps even grace his cooling body with a glance, full of ice-cold frustration.

Nothing happens. The knife slips away like it's made of mercury and disappears, dissolving in the folds of clothing when something huge and hot takes him in, clenching his chest tight with an iron grip. Jim suffocates, catching the air with his lips as he's drowning; the back of his head falls on a broad shoulder, the only support he has in this world. John Ryder's hair is unbelievably soft - the fluff adorning the wings of a fallen angel. Jim exhales sharply as the man tilts his head and touches his temple with his forehead.

\- You're an idiot, - Ryder breathes into his ear, searing the flesh. His voice melancholic and somewhat distant.- Now you're...

A big palm covers Jim's face and he lets it slip across his skin in obedience, welcoming the fingers that slide over his features, sealing them like the eyes of a dead man. Fingers descend toward’s his neck as if echoing his thought, clutching at two particular spots at the corners of his jaw, the frantic beating of his pulse underneath. All too soon, Jim is shrouded in a cloak of darkness, much deeper than the one that hid behind his eyelids before, and he is grateful for it.

_Mine_.

***

Jim opens his eyes in the car’s front seat The interior vaguely reminds him of the Impala he had to drive over the state borders a long time ago, in one of his previous lives, both gone and nearly forgotten. Jim leans forward and covers his face with his hands, chasing away the remnants of sleep, and watches the white light soak between his fingers, passing through the tiny blood vessels in his palms and staining the edges of his flesh with crimson.

The fatigue’s gone.

Neither the insomnia of a battered night nor the granite weight of guilt on his chest accompanying him all these months has survived this rest.

That emptiness, residing in place of his shattered soul, finally stopped echoing through. On the contrary, he feels an extraordinary fullness, ready to overflow at the slightest push, but Jim can't truly say what exactly his heart is ripe with. He doubts the feeling overwhelming him at the moment, mistaking it for either divine grace or the devil’s last resort.

The wind - or maybe it's the voice of the Hitcher - is whispering in his ears.

_The most efficient way to get rid of the temptation is to give into it. _

It whispers:

_The only way to escape your terror is to become it. _

Ten minutes later, Jim walks across the highway, marking the asphalt in steady footsteps with slow confidence. Clouds of dust curl up at his feet like hungry ghosts, settling on the fabric of his jeans, in his hair. Bitterness lingers on his lips – the taste of the loneliness on the road, of the earth carried by the wind and the ashes rushing over the cracked face of asphalt, unable to find peace. The sky above him is gradually getting brighter, the razor sharp edge of darkness softened to a desaturated hue of purple, so that Jim knows there is heat to come.

No birds fly above his head - the whole world stalls, lurking in shade, a predatory animal ready to pounce on its prey. But not at Jim, not this time.

He stops when he hears the grating of tires on the highway and turns around, offers his hand with his thumb up. For a second, he sees himself from the side - how small and fragile his figure must seem on the road, enrolling so many miles ahead. A red Pontiac stops in reach, and Jim knocks on the window glass; like a vampire, he cannot enter without permission. When the door opens, he sees a young man inside, just a few years older than Jim himself, wearing a light jumper with a triangular emblem and a pair of blue jeans. A plainly recognizable tune plays from the radio - _he hit me and I knew I loved him_ – and it's pouring out in the morning air, filling it with a sense of nostalgia Jim can barely recognize. The car drives on when he gets inside, and it slides further with a frightening ease, just like Jim's sanity slides along with it as the road begins to move in front of him, disappearing under the wheels of the car, as he steps towards the inevitable, closing his eyes in silent defeat. There is no sadness, though. It’s far too late for that.

_And then he took me in his arms_

_With all the tenderness there is,_

_And when he kissed me,_

_He made me his. _

An unfamiliar voice reaches out to him. The driver. He asks for his name, and Jim turns to look at him with surprise. He shakes the offered hand and answers mechanically.

\- John, - he doesn't know why he is reluctant to give his real name or does it still belong to him anymore. But as soon as the syllables fall off his tongue, he feels an inexplicable lightness. Like there is something else now controlling his body, and he is finally caught up in a stream that he had been trying to resist for too long and in vain. He sticks his hand in his pocket, looking for cigarettes, but instead feels the smooth metal of the knife handle, its weight a soothing sensation within the grip of his fingers. He adds: - John Ryder.

\- And where are you going, John?

\- Do you have a smoke?

\- In the glove box.

The box gives a dry click when Jim opens it. The red stripe on the cigarette pack flashes like a warning sign when he pulls one cigarette out, and now his color is red as well. He lights up and takes a deep breath, letting the lazy smoke fill up his lungs with a bit of death as he spins the cigarette between his fingers, watching the smoldering edge turning the whites of paper into gray ashes, as it burns out from the inside. He has come full circle. Jim exhales, his gaze falling into the rear view mirror. John Ryder in the back of the car smiles at him bright and merciless as the desert sun, and for the first time Jim smiles back.


End file.
